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Destiny is less than a month away now, and we're caught in a limbo after the massive beta and before the retail release of the game on Xbox and PlayStation. With the most compelling title released so far this month a playable ad for a future game (Silent Hills), I figured it might be time to revisit Destiny, even three weeks or so out.

We know a lot about Destiny at this point, as between the beta and Bungie themselves, the blanks are slowly being filled in. Though the alpha and beta won many fans, other are concerned about the game being supposedly smaller in scope than they were imagining (a handful of planets with only one exploration area in each), and others have been more concerned about Destiny mandating that 6-man raids be played with actual friends, rather than allowing for matchmaking.

I don't want to specifically address those issues again today, but rather focus on the grand scope of Destiny as a ten-year project, a timetable Activision has given for their investment in the series. They also revealed the budget for the endeavor, as CEO Bobby Kotick famously said that Destiny had a $500M budget.

Many interpreted that to be the budget of the first game alone, which would be insane, but most, myself included, assumed that was the bulk of the budget for the entire series, including server costs, extra content and outright sequels.

But what should be prioritized in a huge budget like that? I recently recorded a short video with a few of my thoughts. Please check it out below:

To recap, I think one of Destiny's main issues, glimpsed already in the alpha and beta, is the problem of having a beautiful, but empty world.

The game is gorgeous, there's no denying that, and the loose structure of the plot is a fine start as well, with Guardians resurrected to explore the old fallen cities of the solar system, and protect those who remain against a growing threat.

From what we've seen so far, the game struggles to produce actual characters. Even with five or so story missions complete, your character utters exactly two lines of dialogue, and the only NPC who ever seems to have something to say is your AI. But even he's focused just on the mission at hand most times.

Destiny is missing major cutscenes and characters yes, but I'll admit perhaps there will be more of those as the story goes on. But what I'm more concerned about are the minor details. You almost never encounter NPCs with anything interesting to say in the Tower, as most simply exist as vendors. You certainly never find any out in the wild while exploring.

You can search every inch of one of the sprawling maps of the game, and you'll definitely find some cool hidden chests or beastly enemies. But that's all you'll find. There are no side-quests with anything approaching depth. Only a voice ordering you to kill 10 enemies or hunt down a troll. You complete the tasks and you'll get a dose of XP, and if you're lucky, a Grimoire entry. Really, the only detail of the game's story is contained in the Grimoire, but relying only on a codex to add richness to your universe isn't the most effective way to build a world. Especially not when 80% of Grimoire entries are related to skill trees or weapons, and the story-based ones aren't more than a sentence or two most of the time. In short, story needs to be a more important part of the budget. There's little point creating a big, beautiful world if there's nothing to find in it but loot and loot alone. Lore has always been an important part of MMOs, and even in the loot-heavy games Destiny tries to emulate like Borderlands and Diablo, there are still bits and pieces of stories to be found in town or in the wild. Destiny would be wise to not neglect its narrative in the pursuit of fine-tuning gameplay alone.

My other point I made in the video was that Destiny should consider viewing itself fully as an MMO, rather than a shooter series with MMO elements. I think they may be on that path, judging by how hardcore they're going with raids, but I'm still not sure how things will play out when it comes to sequels.

The central question is if Destiny will have true sequels, $60 games that have the player simply start over again with a new character or characters. Or whether they'll follow a more traditional MMO model of large content expansions for perhaps a bit cheaper, but ones that allow you to carry over your old characters into the new games, expanding their skill set, increasing their level caps, and so on.

In this age of DLC, it's a tricky proposition. I fully expect Destiny to have two or three DLC packs that raise the level cap, and add a new playable planet zone each. But I would be disappointed to sink so many hours into my characters only to have them abandoned when Destiny 2 comes out.

You can view this two ways. Granted, no one is really sad that their Morrowind character didn't transfer all the way to Skyrim, so the system can work for similarly minded RPGs. But would World of Warcraft inspire so much loyalty in its playerbase if it had been separated into outright "sequels" which had players starting over with each new iteration? I don't think so. Part of the appeal of an MMO is the fact that you get to keep your characters for the full run of the series. You get invested in them to the point where even if you want to stop playing, new expansions want you to keep coming back again to revisit your old digital friends.

I think Destiny could have it both ways. I think outside of obvious DLC packs, they probably could position $60 sequels as expansions. So long as they had enough content, I don't think selling them at full-price would necessarily be an issue. The important part would be that they would allow players to continue on with their old Guardians, even if there were new classes to try out from scratch. That may be a bit tricky from a technical perspective, but that's what a $500M budget is for.

My last item I touched on briefly in the video, that I would love for Destiny to expand into a few "minigame" type activities that go beyond just shooting aliens in the face. I think Sparrow races could be a cool sub-section of the game, and past that, I would love for the myriad of spaceships you can buy to be used for more than just loading screen decoration. They could become more customizable and upgradeable, and while I'm not suggesting the game add in a full EVE Online ship component, just something to do with all these awesome looking spaceships would be a welcome addition, whether it was a few story missions, deep space exploration zones or a type of multiplayer deathmatch. I think the game can expand beyond being a "boots on the ground" shooter if it really wanted to.

Those are a few of my theoretical plans for Destiny's sprawling budget. What are yours?